Federal officials in Virginia announced on Tuesday several charges in connection with the August 2017 white nationalist march and rally in Charlottesville.

U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen said four California men were charged with conspiracy to violate the federal riots statute.

The arrests are connected to the violence that broke out between white nationalists and counter-protesters on Aug. 11, 2017, during the “Unite the Right” rally and march. Clashes continued the following day.

Prosecutors said federal agents arrested Benjamin Drake Daley, 25, of Redondo Beach, California, Thomas Walter Gillen, 24, of Rondo Beach, California, Michael Paul Miselis, 29 of Lawndale, California, and Cole Evan White, 24 of Clayton, California, Tuesday morning.

Each was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots statute and one count of violating the federal riots statute.

According to a news release from the Justice Department, the four men charged Tuesday are members or associates of the Rise Above Movement (RAM), a militant white supremacist organization in Southern California.

Documents allege the men traveled to Charlottesville for the August 2017 rally with the intent to “encourage, promote, incite, participate in and commit violent acts…” and “committed multiple acts of violence against counter-protestors at the Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville, which in some cases resulted in serious injuries.”

A complaint in the case features social media screen captures of the group’s Twitter account showing members posing shirtless or working out.

“RAM regularly posts photos of themselves posing shirtless and wearing skull half masks…” officials wrote in the complaint. “RAM and its members openly identify themselves on various social media platforms as ‘alt-right’ and ‘nationalist’ and frequently posts videos and photographs of its adherents engaged in vigorous physical training and mixed martial arts (MMA) street-fighting techniques in order to prepare to engage in fighting and violence at political rallies.”

The group’s Twitter account is currently suspended.

Killed in the violence was Heather Heyer, 32, of Charlottesville when the driver of a Dodge Challenger plowed into a crowd of marching counter-protesters.

Boone County native and Ohio resident James Alex Fields pleaded not guilty to federal hate crimes in August. Fields was already facing first-degree murder charges in Virginia in the death of Heyer.

Fields, who lives in Maumee, Ohio, grew up in Boone County, where he later purchased the vehicle authorities say was used in the Charlottesville attack.

More: NKY native James Alex Fields pleads not guilty in Charlottesville attack

More: Charlottesville driver, from NKY, faces federal hate crime charges

The Dodge Challenger that struck the crowd of counter-protesters at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 was purchased from a Greater Cincinnati car dealership and last registered in Ohio, online records show.

Prosecutors say Fields was the driver of the vehicle and was photographed hours before the attack with a shield bearing the emblem of one of the hate groups taking part in the rally. He has been in custody since then.

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Another Greater Cincinnati resident, Daniel Borden, 19, formerly of Mason, pleaded guilty in May to attacking a black man during the white supremacist march. He admitted to a charge of malicious wounding.

He was caught on video August 12 beating DeAndre Harris in a parking structure during the demonstrations near the University of Virginia. Harris was initially charged as well, but the local prosecutor dropped the charges.

Borden was scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 1, but the hearing was moved to Jan. 7, 2019.

Two other men have already been found guilty in that attack.

 

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